


The Hotel

by doodlebug_nimbus



Category: Yume 2kki
Genre: Body Horror, Existential Angst, Fridge Horror, Gen, Horror, Mental Instability, One Shot, Short One Shot, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlebug_nimbus/pseuds/doodlebug_nimbus
Summary: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.





	The Hotel

Compared to everything else Urotsuki had seen, the hotel seemed innocent enough.

Of course, there were the general inconsistencies and oddities that plagued every room, thanks to the area only existing as a single thread in the fabric of her subconscious. But these inconsistencies were negligible at worst and entertaining at best. The worst thing here was that eyeless, smiling geisha at the front desk—her smile growing even bigger when Urotsuki offered her money was rather disquieting, for reasons she couldn’t accurately pinpoint. As long as these entities weren’t trying to kill her, however, she was fine.

She headed for the staircase off to the geisha’s left, letting her mind wander once it revealed itself to be a rather long strip of brown, stretching off into the void surrounding her. No matter, her motorcycle could handle anything…

Eventually she reached the top, a red platform with two maroon doors standing before her. Remembering all the other times she regretted going through entrances, she got off her ride, headed over to the doors, and slowly turned the knob on one of them, letting herself inside inch by inch.

Once fully inside, unharmed, she studied the surroundings. It looked to be another lobby of some sort, with more doors—sliding doors—in the back, only visible in the two doorways on either side of the wall in the room’s center. Near her were a couple of pitch-black blobs shuddering as they slid across the velveted flooring, and if she listened closely she could’ve sworn she heard long, rattling breaths drawn from deep within themselves, as if these things were being choked out. Under the dim yellow lights they glistened like the trails of slime they left on the carpet, but upon closer inspection, these blobs were actually translucent.

Her stomach twisted at the sight of human skeletons curled up inside them, fractured and malformed—partially digested, perhaps—while some of their bones were absent or fused into each other. Curiously, none of these skeletons had lower halves. The arms were extremely short, lacking joints, and the skulls seemed to melt right into the torsos. Maybe they weren’t human skeletons at all.

She was tempted to whip out her chainsaw and start cutting to see what was going on with these things, though she hesitated the moment she realized she didn’t know their true nature. They could’ve been more dangerous than the shadowy chasers lurking in the darkest areas, and she wasn’t willing to wake up just yet. So she made for one of the doors in the back instead, beginning with the one on the furthest left.

Warm flowery fragrance amongst traces of cut bamboo graced her nostrils as she entered, and for a second or two she felt relieved at the room’s quaintness, her tension thinning seeing the small purple bed in the middle of the room, the paneled window before her to allow blue moonlight in, and the reddish-brown varnished cabinets across from her, in the left corner. The room was almost…normal, something she could easily see existing in real life.

Aside from the pasty-white humanoid gazing at itself in the mirror, of course.

It didn’t seem to notice her entering, and once again she had to be cautious in fear of it killing her. She gradually drew closer to see its face, since most of its head was obscured by waves of disheveled, greasy black hair. The slightest hint of its profile indicated that all it had was its flesh. Absolutely no features to speak of.

It whipped its head around to look at her, and it doing so confirmed what she had suspected. Mostly. A cavernous, triangular opening with ropes of mucus (or saliva?) hanging from its edges comprised its face. Inside the opening was red, raw, pulsating “meat”, glistening faintly as strings of body fluid formed, stretched, or broke within the meat’s various lumps. The opening didn’t seem to shrink into an esophagus, ruling out all chances it might’ve been a crudely-formed mouth. Beyond the opening, there were no indications of any other facial features, lending more mystery as to how it noticed her in the first place. Maybe it had holes on the sides of its head? She knew she was dreaming, but most of her dreams operated on some sort of internal logic…

It emitted a crackling gurgle, similar to what she imagined the sound of rupturing flesh would be, then snapped its attention back to the mirror before it. She could see an intricate system of red and blue branches budding right beneath its skin, every individual offshoot throbbing to filter its sticky, thick blood. The moonlight’s faint wash highlighted its ribcage, and as far as she could tell, it was largely humanlike. As were the massive ridges protruding from its long, arched back. She wondered if the stumps attached to its bottom would’ve once terminated into legs, and then wondered if it was in fact, once human; she dismissed the idea rather quickly, pinning it on the nature of her subconscious.

There was another door to her right that led into a spa, and these spa rooms’ surfaces were composed of finished, expertly sliced bamboo. A square was cut into the floor, across from the entrance, where the purplish water pooled as it spilled from two rusted, metal pipes funneling into the ceiling. A window, set perpendicular to the square, allowed the night to dance in the running water’s waves. The air was heavy and warm from vaporization.

There was nothing of note beyond the rack of hooks sitting adjacent to the window, as one hook hung what appeared to be a swimsuit, wet from use. Urotsuki didn’t touch it, of course, assuming that it belonged to the creature in the other room, but couldn’t resist wondering why the creature would need a swimsuit in the first place.

She left, never noticing the pair of shoes in the corner of the room.

…

The other rooms, she discovered, were similar to the first one she entered. Each one housed another bizarre white creature. The creatures varied in shape or size, but they all had that greasy black hair sprouting from wherever their head was supposed to be. Again, very strange, though they seemed harmless, and this strangeness wasn’t unexpected for her dreamscape. They were all obsessed with their mirrors, occasionally gurgling at them as if their reflections would respond.

The last room was empty, surprisingly. And the furniture looked untouched. It wouldn’t be too bad of a spot to relax, actually. Perhaps it couldn’t hurt to lounge in the bed for a while, either. After a moment’s worth of thought and accepting the room’s emptiness as an invitation, she removed her shoes and eyed the open door to the spa.

…

Urotsuki marvelled at how nice the water felt. With every lap at her skin, her muscles loosened a bit more, and her nerves dug less into her mind. How easy it was to let her thoughts dissipate, too. How easy it was to let go, to let go of her physical existence, to let go of everything that anchored her…

Once in a while she’d return upon feeling something shift deep within her. Probably her allowing herself to sink into the water before she acknowledged it happening. She had done similar things elsewhere, so she let herself go once more.

…

She came back after her spine shattered. It was already too late for her, with her hands being nothing more than two fleshy nubs at the base of—as her feet? Her limbs had been reabsorbed by her body, and her head as she understood it had receded into her torso, effectively rendering her some sort of nondescript blob. Her face felt as though someone split it wide open, leaving something warm and sticky to seep freely from the gaping wound. Her breaths rattled with every attempt her lungs clawed for air, bubbles frothing in the depths of her throat. Something long and dark blocked out the corners of her eyes, and as she slithered out of the spa like a slug, her nubs would wind up tangled in its thick, grimy tentacles. It was her own hair, having grown so wildly as to be inhuman.

Movement was an existential crisis in itself. Every advance toward the other room was arduous, piercing her pounding heart whenever she wanted oxygen, her writhing insides aflame as they continued to mutate beyond anything recognizable. She needed the mirror.

By the time she reached it, she sensed death inching upon her. For a few, unfocused moments, she lingered before it, unwilling to fully acknowledge her reflection being her own. Surely she wasn’t seeing things right, because otherwise…

She was one of them, so far removed from her own personhood that if someone from the real world saw her, they’d try to kill her. She didn’t understand how she was still able to see when her face was a massive, drooling gash in her unsightly amorphous form. She didn’t understand what even happened to her—something in the water?

Urotsuki couldn’t scream, cry, or…just about anything that she felt like doing in that instant. At best she could gurgle horribly and gawk at her awfulness, having been made a guest at the hotel.

And without arms, she couldn’t wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> agghh i wish there were more fics for this game that aren't fetishes or crossovers


End file.
